Barcelona ready in Copa del Rey after Athletic penalty in minute 105 + 1

Friday, January 21, 2022 at 00:04• Dominic Mostert

The Copa del Rey will have a new winner this season. Defending champions Barcelona was eliminated in the eighth final on Thursday evening by Athletic Club, which lost to Barcelona in the final battle last season. In the injury time of regular time, Xavi’s team narrowly dragged an extension out of the fire, but a penalty kick killed Barcelona. After the eliminations in the Supercoppa, Champions League and the title fight, a new damper followed Barcelona.

Barcelona had to do without Memphis Depay (hamstring injury) and Luuk de Jong (suspension), while Frenkie de Jong started on the bench. Pedri was preferred over De Jong, who may have lost his base place. Last week in the semi-final of the Supercopa against Real Madrid, De Jong was relieved by Pedri during the break; the international of the Dutch has recently been criticized for his game. Compared to the Supercopa duel, Ousmane Dembélé was also missing on the starting form. The Frenchman has indicated that he does not want to extend his expiring contract and has therefore been banned from playing. Ez Abde was his replacement in the front left.

Athletic took the lead in the second minute. Nico Williams sprinted on the right flank with his foot on the ball. He outmaneuvered Jordi Alba and sent a low wide pass to Iker Muniain, who fired a brilliant, turning and diagonal shot into the top right corner. Ferran Torres’ equalizing goal was somewhat similar. The attacker received the ball on the left side of the penalty area from Sergio Busquets and curled the ball impeccably into the far top right corner. Athletic was much more emphatically looking for goals in the first half. The number of goal attempts was ten to one in the first 45 minutes, but still the score was 1-1.

Even after the break, the 2-1 was more emphatically in the air than the 1-2. It took until minute 86 before Athletic actually rewarded themselves. From a free kick from the left wing, Muniain gave a hard cross towards the far post, where Álex Berenguer headed against Marc-André ter Stegen. In the rebound, Iñigo Martínez worked the ball in with some tricks. Barcelona hadn’t fired a single shot at goal after the break and seemed to have to prepare for the elimination, but in stoppage time Pedri dragged out extra time. In the chaotic penalty area, Dani Alves risked an overhead kick, with which he delivered the ball to Pedri on a silver platter: 2-2.

Incidentally, Pedri and De Jong were on the field together, because the Dutchman had come in for Gavi after an hour. In the stoppage time of the first half of extra time, Athletic took the lead for the third time, this time after a penalty. Alba got the ball against the arm after a pass from Williams, after which Muniain struck hard through the middle from eleven meters. An equalizer by Ferran was disallowed for offside, after which Barcelona no longer came close to forcing a penalty shootout.